Hyde Park Pick: Janet Planet
Our pick this week is all dreamy summer days and the push and pull of the familial bond.
Wendy Cook
Set in rural Massachusetts, Janet Planet follows 11-year-old Lacy as she spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet.
As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet and her spellbinding nature.
Janet Planet is a remarkably assured and nuanced debut feature made up of three enthralling portraits. The first is Lacy, a distinctly precocious and awkward not-quite-teen trying to cling to her mother whilst also slowly working through a process of seeing the truth of her parent, the imperfections and trying to rationalise what that means for her own burgeoning sense of self.
Then Janet, the mother but also a woman in her own right gently managing the tensions of these dual identities. Finally the family unit is itself is that third portrait, the exchanges between mother and daughter reminding us that who we are alone is both shaped by our experiences of family but can at the same time also be distinctly different to the version of ourselves we are when interacting with family.
The combination of detailed intimate gestures perfectly realised alongside big unanswerable themes is echoed in Baker’s choice of locations in Janet Planet, and again one of the pleasures of it. Despite its large windows peeking onto the world outside, the busy yet cosy interiors of Janet’s timber cabin could feel claustrophobic, but it the eclectic style serves only to feel like an extension of Janet’s easy magnetism. This feels like a home one might never wish to leave. However, when the narrative does opt to take us outside this space we are thrown into the vibrant Massachusetts woodland, or sunny grassy open spans brought to life with the field recordings of birds and insects Baker uses in place of a musical score.
The end result is a film which is subtle, romantic and often humourous. It feels a little like a memory of a perfect, perhaps significant, summer.
“"There's no one working like Annie Baker. So sparse and rich and real, her sense of humour wry and honest but hopeful. Yet there's something hypnotic too, like the sensation of being carried, half asleep, up to your bedroom by your mother after a long car ride."”
Hannah Strong - critic, author (@thethirdhan)
